Bayer

Bayer AG is a German chemical and pharmaceutical giant that was founded in 1863 by Friedrich Bayer and Johann Friedrich Weskott. During World War II, Bayer was consolidated into the German chemical syndicate, IG Farben. In 1945, after World War II, the Allies dissolved IG Farben into three individual companies: Hoechst, Bayer, and BASF.
In 1951 Bayer was re-established as a separate legal entity, Farbenfabriken Bayer Aktiengesellschaft. The current name, Bayer AG, was adopted in 1972. Bayer is now a highly diversified company that currently holds key positions in four main industries: healthcare, agriculture, polymers, and chemicals

Early Bayer Products

Bayer is most well known for its creation of acetylsalicylic acid, trademarked and marketed as aspirin, in 1899. Bayer was also one of the first companies to mass produce heroin, as an alternative to morphine, until its ban in 1914 for its addictive properties.

Since then Bayer has developed scores of: pharmaceuticals, acetates, dyes, synthetic rubbers, plastics, fibres, and other chemicals.

Financial Success

Since its re-founding, Bayer has become a pharmaceutical giant and has operations in most countries worldwide. In 2014 bayer employed around 118,900 people and global sales reached nearly $45 billion. In the United States alone, Bayer is ranked as the 10th highest earning pharmaceutical company.

2014 Key Financials

$ Millions

Revenues

53,310

Profits

4,233

Assets

70,704

Lawsuits Against Bayer

Bayer’s history has a long record of unethical advertising practices that ignore or downplay the risks of their products. Bayer has recently faced lawsuits related to their oral contraceptive Yasmin™/ YAZ™ and their long term IUD contraceptive Mirena. In both lawsuits, the plaintiffs allege that Bayer released defective products when they have known or should have known the risks and made them available to the patients.

Xarelto

Bayer’s top selling drug, Xarelto (rivaroxaban), is an oral blood thinner used to prevent dangerous blood clots. It was developed by Bayer and marketed by Johnson & Johnson as a safer alternative to the traditionally used Warfarin. All blood thinners create the risk of uncontrolled bleeding. Warfarin has been traditionally used because its effects that cause bleeding can controlled and reversed by administering vitamin K to a patient.

Because there is no known reversal or antidote to quickly counteract Xarelto’s blood thinning effects, doctors can have a hard time controlling bleeding in a patient. Uncontrollable bleeding from Xarelto has already resulted in harm and even death in thousands of patients.
Patients who have filed Xarelto lawsuits allege Bayer and J&J did not properly test the blood thinner before it went to market and downplayed the risks of using Xarelto.